A large number of applications created by third party vendors are typically used in processing data files. These applications are provided to users “as is” and usually do not include source code. In other words, these applications typically are not open source applications. In these types of applications, if an error occurs during processing of a data file, a user generally cannot determine which object in a data file caused the error in the application because the source code is not available for debugging the application. To correct the error, the user typically takes a trail and error approach by editing the data file and by trying to process the data file until the application runs without failure. This approach, however, is often very time consuming and difficult.
In large print jobs, for instance, a raster image processor may process a large image file and eventually fail after several hours of processing. As such, considerable time and resources may be lost in taking the trail and error approach to debugging data files. Therefore, it would be beneficial to identify the data objects of a data file that cause errors in an application via a systematic approach in order to produce data files that do not cause the application to fail.